GAMES 62-64: I Don't ♥ NY

GAME 62 - June 11: Yankees 4, Astros 3
GAME 63 - June 12: Yankees 9, Astros 3
GAME 64 - June 13: Yankees 9, Astros 5


SPECIAL FEATURE: Nats 9, Indians 4

There's always this great anticipation, as my family is making Havdalah on Saturday night, wondering: Which of the Sabbath games did the Astros win? My late Saturday night entertainment is almost always an archived game that I know the result of. Since I cancelled my subscription to the Washington Post a few years ago, I no longer know the outcome of Friday night's game until I turn on the computer after the Sabbath ends. Maybe they won both?  Then I could watch one Saturday night and the other Sunday morning before the afternoon game starts. Or, maybe, on a bad weekend, they lost both games? I used to be more of a masochist, forcing myself to watch every game even if I knew it was a stinker. But now, I'm more pragmatic and kind to myself: When I know ahead of time that it's a real loser, I just don't watch it. Or at the most, I watch the good parts -- a half inning here or there that sounds interesting from the game reports. Could be the inning where the Astros scored runs, or a great play, or just an oddity, like the time our backup catcher Cash pitched an inning in a blowout loss.

Yesterday afternoon, as I was lying on the couch reading The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (finale of the best-selling Swedish trilogy), I was looking forward to a nice evening of baseball, wondering which of the games in NY would be the most entertaining demonstration of the Astros kicking some Yankee butt. I had already warned myself that the Yankees are a tough team, and it's in their billion dollar palace, so don't get too hopeful - it's not likely the Astros can sweep them. So I was cautiously optimistic, and not exactly shocked, to find that the Astros lost both Shabbat games. I spent the evening doing a super sudoku, the 5-in-1 kind.

That's probably how I should have spent this afternoon, instead of watching a parallel double header. On my antique 12" Dell laptop I watched the Astros @ Yankees game on mlb.tv, wearing headphones. At the same time, on my TV, I watched the HDD MASN broadcast of the Nationals @ Indians game. Or more specifically, I watched Stephen Strasburg pitching that game. It was a little tricky to coordinate the two -- I only wanted to watch the bottoms of the innings from Cleveland, while my bigger interest in the Astros game was the top halves, hoping the Astros would get some hits today.

The Nats game turned out pretty much as I'd hoped -- for the Astros. Strasburg had what any normal person would think was a nice start for a young rookie -- he pitched 5 1/3 innings, giving up only 1 run (solo homer) on 2 hits, 5 walks, and 8 strikeouts. Switching from my earphones to the TV audio, I did hear one of the Nationals broadcasters bemoaning that Strasburg had not had a very good game today. That clearly is the danger of comparing everything from here on to his monumental debut. The main problem for Strasburg today was control -- he was having ongoing problems with the mound, and the groundskeepers had to come out twice to fill in a hole in his landing spot. An inability to work around that probably had something to do with all the walks. And, oh yeah, he's also just a 21 year old kid - he's not perfect. What he did have going for him today was the rest of the Nats team -- they got clutch hits, scored a bunch of runs, and pitched their way out of trouble (mostly). So, good game. Remind me again why I don't cheer for the Nats?

Oh yeah, it's because I'm an Astros fan. The Astros did not fare as well. They did get some runs -- one in the first inning (suckering me into thinking that they might have a big game) and 4 in the sixth (suckering me into thinking they might come-from-behind). But too little, too late. Astros pitchers gave up 9 runs on 9 hits including 2 homers (one a grand slam), 10 (TEN!) walks, a hit batter, and a fielding error. All in all, a big mess. The Astros broadcasters tried to pawn off the cause of the walks on the weather -- it rained through most of the game. But I'm still not certain how it was that the Yankee pitchers were not affected -- they only gave up 2 walks. Perhaps the Astros, with their retractable roof, just aren't used to playing in bad weather? Or maybe it only rained when the Astros were in the field?

At any rate, I don't really want to compare Moehler's bad start to Wandy's yesterday. It was a bad weekend for Astros baseball. Why couldn't we play the Orioles instead of the Yankees? Just to sum up, in case you missed it: I really hate NY. And the Yankees aren't even the NY baseball team that I like the least.